In her first legislative testimony, Chief Stella Patterson faces a paradox: the numbers say Charlotte is getting safer, but people don’t feel it.
Chief Stella Patterson stood before the North Carolina House Oversight Committee on Monday afternoon with a message that should have been a victory lap: violent crime in Charlotte is down 29% year-over-year. Property crime has dropped 27%. Overall crime is down by the same margin.
Instead, she spent much of her testimony explaining why nobody seems to believe it.
“I think people think that Charlotte is an unsafe city, although our numbers show otherwise,” Patterson told lawmakers during the February 9 hearing. “Really just making sure for me that we’re working on that perception and we’re working to mitigate crime on all terms.”
It’s the central paradox of her first 90 days on the job: Charlotte is objectively safer than it was a year ago, but the city’s 900,000 residents and the businesses that anchor Uptown don’t feel it. That gap between data and dread now defines Patterson’s tenure as she tries to rebuild public confidence while filling nearly 300 vacant officer positions.
The Numbers Tell One Story
Patterson came to the hearing armed with facts. Since taking command on December 1, 2024, she’s watched the crime trend lines continue downward. Year-to-date, Charlotte is 29% safer in violent crime, 27% down in property crime, and 27% lower overall compared to the same period in 2025.
Those aren’t marginal improvements. They represent one of the steepest drops in crime for any major American city over the past year, and Patterson was quick to credit her officers.
“We saw reductions across the board in our violent crime and in our property crime,” she said. “That is something that you don’t see often. And so I really want to tell the work of our officers in 2025 to reduce our crime.”
The reductions built on momentum from the previous year, when crime also fell by 21% under her predecessor, Chief Johnny Jennings. Patterson called Jennings a friend and mentor, someone who helped her secure the top job in Raleigh before she returned home to Charlotte to take the CMPD helm.
But numbers on a spreadsheet don’t stop people from clutching their purses a little tighter when they walk from the parking deck to dinner Uptown. And that’s the problem Patterson inherited.
Why Perception Lags Behind Reality
City Manager Marcus Jones tried to explain the disconnect. “Even if the data may suggest something different, if you don’t feel safe, you’re not safe,” he told lawmakers.
It’s a point Patterson echoed repeatedly. Crime rates measure incidents. They don’t measure fear. And fear is shaped by high-profile cases, social media amplification, and the ever-present drumbeat of local news alerts that make every shooting feel like it happened on your block.
Charlotte’s growth exacerbates the problem. The city adds roughly 100 new residents every day, Jones said. Many arrive from smaller cities or suburbs where crime feels more abstract. When they land in Charlotte and see homeless encampments near Bank of America Stadium or read about a carjacking in South End, it feels like a betrayal of the city’s promise.
“We have 100 people a day coming into the city,” Mayor Vi Lyles said during her portion of the hearing. “We have to make sure every one of them comes feeling really like they can be safe.”
Then there’s the issue of what people see versus what gets reported. Petty theft, vandalism, and quality-of-life crimes don’t always show up in violent crime statistics, but they create an ambient sense of disorder. Business owners Uptown have been vocal about retail theft and aggressive panhandling, even as robberies decline.
Last July, crime concerns Uptown prompted an emergency response that brought together the DA, the county, private business leaders, and nonprofits. Patterson wasn’t chief yet, but the crisis meeting underscored how quickly perception can spiral into a political problem.
Patterson’s Priorities: Violent Crime, Community, and Staffing
Patterson laid out three clear priorities for her tenure. First: violent crime reduction. Second: building community partnerships. Third: taking care of her officers and filling the department’s 289 vacant positions.
On violent crime, she’s leaning into technology and collaboration. CMPD recently invested in drones, which Patterson used effectively in Raleigh for surveillance and crowd management during large protests. “That’s a force multiplier for us,” she said.
The department also runs a Crime Gun Intelligence Center in partnership with the ATF, allowing detectives to quickly trace shell casings from shooting scenes and link cases across the city. Patterson called the unit “essential” and praised CMPD’s crime analysis team as “one of the best in the country.”
But technology only goes so far. Patterson stressed that CMPD can’t have officers everywhere at once, which is why community partnerships matter. “We know that we can’t do this work alone,” she said. “We don’t have enough officers to have them in every place at all times.”
That’s where the staffing crisis bites hardest. CMPD is budgeted for 1,938 sworn officers but is running 289 short. Starting pay is $59,000, which sounds reasonable until you realize surrounding municipalities are often willing to pay more for less demanding work.
“Large police agencies deal with the situation where surrounding agencies, so smaller municipalities, are able to fund their police departments better in that sense,” Patterson said. “I experienced it in Raleigh. We’ve seen it here in Charlotte as well.”
Patterson floated a solution: a 10% across-the-board raise and take-home cars for all officers. She acknowledged that would cost money the city doesn’t have lying around, but argued it would make CMPD competitive enough to stop the constant poaching by suburbs.
“If we had say a 10% increase in our pay and those take-home cars like I talked about, I think that really makes us more competitive with those around us,” she said. “It becomes a point where other agencies probably cannot exceed that.”
Representative Miller, a former chief deputy from Brunswick County, asked the obvious question: if CMPD gets the officers, does it have enough cars? Patterson didn’t blink. “We get the officers, we’ll get the cars,” she said.
Mental Health Crisis as a Force Multiplier (In the Wrong Direction)
One theme ran through nearly every answer Patterson gave: mental health. CMPD currently embeds 12 mental health clinicians with officers in its Community Policing Crisis Response Team. Those teams respond to mental health calls and follow up afterward to connect people with care.
It’s not enough.
Representative Cunningham pressed Patterson on whether the city needs more clinicians as the population grows and “social norms and behavior norms are just not present anymore in society.” Patterson agreed but said she’s still evaluating the gaps.
CMPD also trains officers in Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) protocols, a 40-hour course that teaches de-escalation and recognition of mental health crises. About 700 officers have completed the training, though Patterson noted the department waits until officers have two or three years of street experience before sending them through the program.
That’s a deliberate choice, but Representative Cunningham questioned whether it’s the right one. “I’m concerned that we’re waiting two to three years for CIT training, even if they’re new officers,” she said. “They should be well-qualified to handle that population, because we are seeing more issues with people with mental health and behavior health issues.”
Patterson didn’t push back. The question now is whether CMPD can scale its mental health response fast enough to keep pace with a growing city where untreated mental illness increasingly spills into public spaces.
The ICE Question and the Limits of Local Policing
The hearing took a sharp turn when Representative Cunningham asked Patterson about federal immigration enforcement. In recent weeks, ICE and Border Patrol operations in Charlotte have drawn protests, with some activists blowing whistles and following agents through neighborhoods.
Cunningham, a nurse by training, asked Patterson point-blank: would you advise people to blow whistles and walk behind federal agents?
Patterson’s answer was careful but clear. “I believe that we respect law enforcement,” she said. “Those who are doing the work to keep our community safe, we have an obligation to make sure that we support that work. I wouldn’t condone, I don’t think it’s right to heckle, to interfere or to intervene in the work that the lawful work that police officers and law enforcement is doing.”
She clarified that CMPD enforces criminal law, not immigration law, which is mostly civil and administrative. But if ICE wants to collaborate on violent crime cases, CMPD will work with them just like it does with the FBI, ATF, and Highway Patrol.
“If ICE and Border Patrol wants to work on violent crime reduction and take in violent felons, we are willing to work with them on that,” Patterson said. “We do that kind of work anyway with our federal partners, so expanding it to them would be nothing different.”
That measured response stood in stark contrast to the combative testimony earlier in the day from Sheriff Gary McFadden, who sparred with lawmakers over ICE detainer compliance and jail conditions. Patterson made it clear she intends to stay in her lane: CMPD arrests people, the sheriff holds them, and the courts decide what happens next.
Big Events, Big Costs, and Big Opportunities
Charlotte isn’t just growing. It’s hosting. The city will welcome a World Cup preliminary match in May, along with regular NASCAR races, NFL games, and the occasional Final Four. Those events pump millions into the local economy, but they also stretch CMPD thin.
Representative Quick asked how the department balances staffing for international events while still protecting neighborhoods. Patterson said CMPD relies on off-duty officers and mutual aid from other agencies, including Highway Patrol.
“We recognize the importance to having them in place, but we pull from other agencies as well when we can mutual aid to come in and help us with these events,” she said.
She also noted that Governor Roy Cooper has made state resources available whenever CMPD needs them. But Patterson acknowledged the strain. “It is taxing to have all the events that we do have in Charlotte,” she said. “Our officers are tired because they have to work a lot of that.”
City Manager Jones pointed out that Charlotte generates 22% of North Carolina’s economic activity, which means the state has a vested interest in keeping the city safe and functional. Between November 2024 and November 2025, Jones said, 16 major projects were announced in Charlotte, all of which relied on state and local incentives.
“We would not have had those projects without state incentives and local incentives,” he said. “What we learned is many of these companies, they love the incentives, they love the workforce quality, they love the airport and the quality of life.”
Translation: if Charlotte stumbles, the state stumbles. That gives Patterson leverage when she asks for more resources, but it also raises the stakes every time a high-profile crime makes national news.
What Comes Next
Patterson has been on the job for just over two months. She’s still learning the city, still identifying gaps, and still building relationships with the sheriffs, DAs, and county officials who make up Charlotte’s fragmented public safety ecosystem.
But she’s already set a tone. Unlike her predecessor, who became a lightning rod for criticism during his tenure, Patterson is leaning into collaboration, data, and transparency. She told lawmakers she’s a “chiefs, officers chief” who believes in making sure her people are well taken care of.
“I’m a chiefs, officers chief, I believe in making sure that our people are well taken care of,” she said. “I’ve demonstrated that when I was in Raleigh as the chief and I know that we have got to fill vacancies. We have to make sure our employees have the tools they need to be successful so that we can make our city the safest that it can be.”
Mayor Lyles praised Patterson’s early work, calling her a “best friend” who has the wherewithal to tackle tough issues. “She has the wherewithal to work through some of these tougher issues that we perhaps need to know about,” Lyles said. “And we’re grateful for her presence.”
The question now is whether Patterson can close the gap between perception and reality before the next election cycle. Crime is down. That’s real. But fear is also real, and fear doesn’t care about statistics.
If Patterson can keep the numbers moving in the right direction while also making people feel safer when they walk to their cars at night, she’ll have done something rare in American policing. She’ll have won both the war and the narrative.
For now, she’s focused on the first part. The second part, she knows, will take longer.
About the Author
Jack Beckett is a senior writer for The Charlotte Mercury, where he covers politics, public safety, and the occasionally unhinged world of local government. He believes the best journalism happens somewhere between the third and fourth cup of coffee, which is also when his editor stops returning his texts.
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This article, “Charlotte Crime Down 29%, But Perception of Safety Remains Challenge for New Police Chief,” by Jack Beckett is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.
“Charlotte Crime Down 29%, But Perception of Safety Remains Challenge for New Police Chief”
by Jack Beckett, The Charlotte Mercury (CC BY-ND 4.0)